


the warm glow of survival

by makehomesofhumans



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Spoilers, what is a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7256677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makehomesofhumans/pseuds/makehomesofhumans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azeroth's new Guardian gave many people hope, but Lothar needed to keep him from falling the way Medivh did in order to make it last.</p><p>(This story starts in the last scene with them together.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the warm glow of survival

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my new friend and beta genuinelies!!
> 
> Disclaimer: I know little to nothing about lore or how to characterize these two correctly so please don't be upset with me lmao.
> 
> (Title from Twenty One Pilots - Semi-Automatic.)

Betrayal was one of the vilest things Lothar had felt in a while, and he was somehow lucky enough to experience it twice in one day.

First Medivh, and then Garona; then he almost got the chance to suffer it again when Khadgar’s eyes lit up green instead of his usual dark brown or lightning blue. He probably would have broken down if he lost Khadgar along with everyone else, but Lothar wasn’t surprised that the mage was powerful enough to control the Fel despite the odds.

His life was a tragedy and he almost smirked sadly about it until his room door opened without clearance to do so. He was about to shout at whoever thought it was a good idea to walk in on him after the last few days he’d had, but stopped when he saw the new Guardian walk through his door.

Khadgar stopped in his tracks and stared at him, and Lothar knew it was because he looked like he was about to kill someone. He sighed, rubbed his face, and got up from his bed. He walked the mage over to his desk and set Garona’s dagger on it for Khadgar to see, gauging his reaction.

He simply picked it up and stated, “Garona’s dagger.”

Lothar watched, waiting for the reaction he wasn’t going to get, “Pulled that from Llane’s neck.”

Khadgar instantly came back with, “Well there has to be an explanation,” and Lothar admired that innocence, he did, but this wasn’t something Khadgar could just push away and ignore. This was their king’s death, and Garona’s treachery.

The commander turned and sat on his bed wearily, “Yes. She made her choice.”

Lothar ignored the idea that there could be another explanation, because he was too convinced of his first conclusion to entertain anything else. If he had someone to be rightly furious at for taking their king, then he was going to accept it, no matter how badly it bruised him.

“I don’t believe that.” Khadgar didn’t have the same stubbornness as him, though; he had an open mind and a compassionate spirit, it made Lothar want to shake the kid and make him recognize the real world for what it was.

Lothar smiled at him, as if it was all just a sad joke, “Maybe we didn’t know her as well as we thought we did.”

Khadgar came over and sat by Lothar on the bed, leaving the dagger on the table, “I’ll figure it out. I’ll find out what happened.”

Lothar looked over at him with doubt written all over his features. “Waste your time if you want, but do not expect me to believe whatever you come up with.”

Khadgar looked back at him, “Even if it makes more sense than her betrayal?”

“Yes, even then.”

They broke eye contact as Khadgar looked away from him, “Understood.”

A comfortable silence stretched over the room as Lothar realized how exhausted he was. Then he realized how close Khadgar was sitting next to him; and maybe it was the size of the bed or how much space both men took up, but it didn’t feel out of place. It felt comforting, and Lothar’s exhaustion tripled because of it.

“I want to hear the theory anyhow, Guardian, when you come up with it…” he trailed off as sleep starting seeping into his mind; he could barely keep his eyes open. His position on the bed wavered as his body started to lose balance due to it’s weary state.

A firm hand on his arm brought him back, however, starkly and suddenly. Khadgar had stood up at some point and was now looming over the commander, steadying his shaky posture, and Lothar just looked up at him.

Khadgar’s eyes flickered something Lothar couldn’t name before he said, “I’ll talk to you again soon, my friend.”

Lothar nodded and blearily reached out after Khadgar as he left the room, but he fell asleep before he had a second to think about it.

///

Lothar was having nightmares, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, but these ones were different. They weren’t about his wife, or his son, or the king, they were about Khadgar’s eyes. His vile green ones, to be exact.

They hadn’t shone emerald since Khadgar defeated the Fel in Medivh, but Lothar couldn’t stop seeing them in his head. He remembered reaching out for Khadgar after he dropped into the pool, remembered looking into his eyes and stumbling back from his friend.

But then Khadgar put his hand out to him and Lothar thought it was finally his end, death by fire or something close, but instead Khadgar shielded him, kept him safe. The mage was so unbelievably powerful; sometimes it stunned Lothar to think about it.

In fact, he had been thinking about it a lot lately, which was when the nightmares came into effect. He’d been dreading the idea of losing Khadgar to the Fel like he almost did the day Medivh was defeated. He worried about Khadgar being as lonely as Medivh, falling the way he had.

So Lothar visited him in Karazhan often, possibly more often than would be considered normal, but he didn’t have many other duties that were more important than keeping the Guardian of Azeroth sane.

Khadgar was practically handed the tower after Medivh fell, and of course he took it gratefully; he was probably reading twenty books a day with his conviction and passion. It was all the young mage could have dreamed of and more.

Lothar started to visit him more frequently after he took a couple weeks to drown himself in his sorrows; because at some point those sorrows circled around to the possibility of losing Khadgar along with everyone else and he decided to get off his ass and solve his own problems.

When he showed up at the tower, he didn’t knock anymore; he just walked in and announced himself because Khadgar didn’t have many other visitors anyway.

This time, Lothar walked in on Khadgar practicing new spells that he dug out of a dusty book, and every time he had walked in on that same scene he became spellbound somehow. He could act uninterested in the mage’s magic all day, but that didn’t mean he was.

Khadgar was whispering words he couldn’t hope to recognize, and Lothar just watched his shining eyes as Khadgar walked around his tower. They were electric blue and burning bright, and Lothar couldn’t look away.

Khadgar paused his practicing long enough to notice that Lothar was there, staring at him, and stopped casting his spells. His eyes turned back to their natural dark brown and Khadgar just lifted a brow at the commander until Lothar looked away.

Khadgar smiled, “How have you been Lothar?”

Lothar shrugged as if nothing had happened, “I’ve been worse at some point, probably. How is this grubby tower treating you?” He started to fiddle with some trinkets Khadgar had lying around.

The mage instantly lit up, “It’s spectacular, Lothar. Medivh transferred his expansive knowledge to me when he fell, but there’s still so much to learn from this place. I always find something new.”

Lothar’s spirit lifted along with Khadgar’s and all his fears of the Fel started to ease, for now. He flicked at a small charm on the mage’s desk before Khadgar came over and stopped his hand.

He looked at Khadgar, really looked, and asked, “How long have you been cooped up in here?”

Khadgar rolled his eyes and set the book he was reading from down on the table next to yet another stack of books, “It hasn’t been that long.”

Lothar highly doubted that, and knew that he’d just have to guess the answer out of him. He folded his arms over his chest and furrowed his brow, “Two weeks?”

Khadgar winced and turned to put more books away on the shelves; well, it wasn’t two then.

Lothar tried again, “Three weeks?”

Khadgar sighed and turned around, “I’ve been busy! I’m your- I’m Azeroth’s new Guardian, I need to know everything I possibly can. To protect my people.”

Lothar ignored the stutter and instead focused on the fact that Khadgar hadn’t left his new home in weeks. Granted it wasn’t as long as, say, six years, whether Medivh was alone or not, but three weeks was still too long for his comfort.

He moved his hands to his hips, “We’re leaving for the night then, you’re going out.”

Khadgar finished stacking and arranging his books to look back at Lothar in amusement, “Do you have somewhere exciting in mind?”

Lothar deadpanned, “Not at all. But it’s far away from this ugly tower and that’s all you need.”

Khadgar smiled at that and agreed to go out, once he got ready. Lothar sat on the bottom of the steps for a few minutes before he finally got Khadgar out of that wretched, grimy keep and off to somewhere else, somewhere safe, with him.

///

Lothar’s gryphon dropped them off at the front door of the tavern before flying off into the night. Khadgar was stumbling when he got off, forcing himself to crouch over his knees and breathe before moving again; he wasn’t the best on a bird.

“I could have teleported us here, you know,” his voice wasn’t as sarcastic as the statement seemed to need, instead it came out almost like a choke.

Lothar chuckled and walked over to pat the mage on his back, “Well, I get no fun out of that.”

Khadgar groaned and shooed him away, finally managing to stand up straight and lead them into the tavern. The place was fairly cramped and bustling, and Lothar wasn’t surprised. Everyone here was trying to ignore the effects of war and he wasn’t much different usually. This time, however, wasn’t about him.

They met the bar at the same speed and Lothar signaled the barkeep for a round of two, but Khadgar pulled his arm back down and gave him a look.

“I don’t drink.”

Lothar smirked and grabbed his shoulder, “I know, spell-chucker, they’re for me.”

Khadgar laughed openly at that and Lothar thought for a second that his smile somehow managed to light up this gloomy tavern, but then he remembered the beers and signaled the keep again.

The mead loosened him up in many ways, and Khadgar was probably enjoying messing with him for it, but he didn’t really mind at this point. Khadgar could ask him question after question and get an honest answer, which he would have gotten anyway, without the beer, but Khadgar didn’t need to know that.

It was lighthearted things at first, Lothar’s undergarment pattern, what he sang to himself as he washed up, but at some point the mead did as it normally would and turned him grim instead of upbeat, it got him thinking about all he’s lost.

Khadgar couldn’t notice the shift right away, but once he did see Lothar’s eyes gloss over, the mage knew why. He spoke lightly for a while.

Lothar watched as Khadgar’s mind shuffled through the appropriate things to say when a friend is feeling such a way that the commander normally did, but then he just shook his head and said what he was thinking no matter how it would affect him.

“I still can’t understand Garona-”

Lothar cut him off, “You should stop thinking about it.”

He sighed, “I know… but I thought I knew her…”

The commander let a depreciative smile curl at his lips, “We all did.” He took another drink before adding, “Bet you’re glad you didn’t get to lie with her now.”

Khadgar sputtered out the water he just took a sip of and wiped his mouth before saying, “I never wanted to lie with her!”

Lothar perked up at that and smiled wide at the mage, “Someone’s getting defensive.”

Khadgar rolled his eyes and set his mug back down on the table, “I’m serious, I really didn’t want to.”

His truthful conviction made Lothar perplexed, but intrigued, “You didn’t? That is surprising, because I did.”

Khadgar’s fingers tightened around the cup in what looked like jealousy, and maybe he was lying after all, but then, “She’s not really my type.”

The mage’s hand unclenched as if there was no reason for it to do that in the first place and he looked away. The commander was shocked, why wouldn’t Khadgar lie with Garona if he had gotten the chance? Maybe it was because of her ancestry…

“Are you referring to her being part Orc? Because she was more beautiful than half of the humans I know and I, personally, would have gotten over it.” He took a drink before he noticed Khadgar stiffening next to him.

“No, I do not care about her being part Orc. I care about her being a her.”

And that time it was Lothar’s turn to choke on his drink, but he made it much less obvious. Khadgar saw it anyway and rolled his eyes, “It’s not a big deal; you don’t need to worry for your safety or anything.”

There was a lot of venom in the mage’s voice, and his words pulled at something deep in Lothar’s chest. He definitely wasn’t worried, more the opposite somehow, whatever that meant.

“I’m not worried.”

Khadgar turned to him with searching eyes and nodded slightly when he found what he was looking for. They didn’t talk much more after that, but Lothar couldn’t shake his mind off the mage. Every thought traced back to him now, and he didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t trying to stop it either.

Once the other patrons started filtering out of the bar as the night grew late, Khadgar decided Lothar had hit his limit and that it was time for them to go as well.

The commander’s gryphon metaphorically took the reins and flew them both back to Lothar’s residence. Khadgar was completely sober so he had the wits teleport himself to his tower, but he didn’t mind helping the commander home first and making his own arrangements after.

Lothar was leaning heavily against him as Khadgar walked them into his room. The mage roughly dropped Lothar down on the bed with a mocking mutter of, “Get some sleep Lothar, it has been a long night.”

The commander was barely awake enough to roll his eyes, but the second Khadgar went to pull away and leave, Lothar’s hand reached out and grabbed his wrist tight.

Khadgar stopped and looked back at him, “What is it?”

“Who is your type?”

Khadgar had a flickering sensation crawling up his spine that made him feel like he should run, but he answered anyway, “I told you: men. Can we not talk about it now?”

Lothar squeezed tighter before loosening his grip a bit, “Yes, yes, I know, but _who_?”

The mage blinked and felt a heat rising up his cheeks, “That is not important.”

The commander suddenly reached up and grabbed the front of Khadgar’s robes, sending the mage off balance and forcing him to fall over Lothar, bracing himself on the bed.

“Lothar, what are you-“

The commander wouldn’t let go of Khadgar’s robes, and he tried to pull him closer with that advantage, “I could be your type.”

Khadgar was kind of getting pissed off, despite the heat in his stomach, “Not like this you couldn’t.” He grabbed at Lothar’s hands, trying to set himself free and barely making progress.

Lothar scrunched his face at that, “Like what? Drunk? I’m not drunk.”

Khadgar openly laughed at that, “Yeah? You should smell your breath.”

Lothar was obviously wounded by that and he loosened his grip, allowing Khadgar to yank himself away. The commander’s face fell as if he had just lost one of his loved ones again, and maybe Khadgar should have explained better instead of becoming upset.

“It’s not just because you’re drunk. It’s because you’re drunk and you don’t want this. You are trying to fill a void, Lothar, and I am not going to put myself through that.”

Khadgar started to back himself towards the door, “If you do ever want me when you’re sober, ask again and you won’t get the same result. Also-“ Khadgar watched Lothar’s eyes start to droop, “I’m only saying this because I know you won’t remember it tomorrow.”

Lothar dropped his head on the pillow before his eyes finally fell closed. Khadgar felt drained, but he had security in the fact that he was able to bare his heart without anyone to remember it, other than himself.

Lothar was asleep before he even got a foot out the door.

Khadgar teleported back to his tower and fell to his knees the second he got there. His mind was a fog. He barely got himself to his own bed; he was more exhausted than he had let himself believe.

He lied in his bed awake, despite his weariness, remembering Lothar tugging him in the way he did. He wasn’t going to bring it up to Lothar the next time he saw him; It was up to the commander to sort out his feelings on his own.

///

Lothar woke up groggy and disoriented the next morning, which he didn’t have a chance to be upset about before his head was in the toilet for the next few minutes.

This was his usual morning routine after a night of drinking; it was a single trip to the restroom and nothing more. He was too used to it by now, and whether that was good or bad he didn’t really care.

After he washed up and got rid of the taste in his mouth, he sat on his bed trying to recall the last night he had. It was fuzzy and almost sickening, but he kept trying.

One memory stood out harshly clear and vibrant: Khadgar was interested in men. And along with that memory came dread and fear running rampant in his bones, as if he had done something he wouldn’t have normally done if he hadn’t been dead drunk.

He had no idea what it was, but there was a prickling embarrassment he couldn’t shake, so he decided he could either ask the only other person that was with him or just ignore it.

In the end, he decided on neither. He would visit Khadgar, to see if there was something off with him, and possibly decide after that.

He left for Karazhan right after his limbs finally started working correctly. His gryphon took its time nosily complaining, likely because it helped his sorry ass not even 10 hours ago, but obliged anyhow. Lothar would give him a luxurious dinner for his loyalty later.

When he arrived on the balcony of the tower, he saw bright blue light streaming out of the windows in surging waves. As he walked up to the door, he heard Khadgar bellowing as loud as he had ever heard and so he ripped the door open without thinking, just in case it was necessary.

There was no treacherous enemy to fight, as he had assumed on the opposite side of the door, but Khadgar was still in some sort of danger…probably.

The mage was floating far above the bookshelves, surrounded by stuffed practice dummies. As Lothar watched, Khadgar shouted out another stream of words, creating bolts that flew from his hands and hit every last mannequin dead in the center.

The dummies fell apart into smoke as new ones took their place. He was stunned for a second, then wondered how many times this was going to happen before Khadgar noticed him.

But then Khadgar shot his arcane bolts again and these new dummies fell, not in smoke, but in weight. Lothar didn’t know what these new figures were made out of, but as one fell fast and pummeled him to the floor he stopping wondering about it.

He groaned loudly as he tried to push the thing off of him, but Khadgar was at his side, moving it with his magic, first. The dummy fell heavily next to him and he choked in a ragged breath.

Khadgar crouched at his side and started trying to help his friend relax, “Lothar I am very sorry, I didn’t see you come in-”

Lothar pressed his palm against Khadgar’s chest as he tried to breathe, “It is alright, I’m just fine. What are you doing in here?”

Khadgar blinked and looked around the room at the fallen mannequins; Lothar watched as the mage’s eyes burned blue before they all disappeared in an instant.

“I was just practicing a couple spells I found; I had to make the enemy more difficult to defeat as I completed each round.”

Lothar nodded and leaned up on his elbows, wincing as he did, “Maybe you should make them mobile next time, enemies in the real world won’t stand idly by while you shout spells at them.”

Khadgar smiled, gave him a hand and pulled the commander to his feet, “Good idea.”

Lothar was using his friend for support once again; Khadgar started to walk them up the stairs to his bedroom, but decided against it and teleported them there instead. Once they blinked into the room, he gently moved Lothar to the chair in front of his desk.

The commander groaned as he dropped down into the seat and Khadgar got a bit anxious, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Lothar rubbed at his chest, “No, but I am sure I will survive. Do you know any spells that deal with healing?”

Khadgar shook his head, “That’s not really my specialty. Should I teleport you to an infirmary?”

Lothar waved him off and settled into the chair, “No, no, it is not that serious. I’ve just had a rough morning, is all.”

Khadgar laughed, remembering the night before, “I can only imagine.”

Lothar pulled his boots off and decided to get comfortable, because he wasn’t going to be leaving this chair anytime soon, “Yeah, I bet it was an easy night for you, Guardian, as you were sipping water all night.”

Khadgar took Lothar’s relaxing as a sign to unwind himself. He remembered a book he read not long ago about conjuring objects and decided to try it out. When nothing came of it, he resigned to getting a chair from the next room over.

He came back and set the chair next to Lothar’s at the desk, pulling his most recent read off the pile in front of him, “I have a lot to do, my friend, I can’t manage to be indisposed too often in this time of war. Does the Lion of Azeroth have anywhere he needs to be today?”

Lothar thought for a second before he decided on, “Not anymore” and saw Khadgar smile to himself.

He watched as Khadgar hummed and began studying next to him. He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen, but if he had thought about it he could have guessed Khadgar would stick his nose in a book.

Lothar didn’t mind it, though, if anything it made him feel more at home somehow. It was a serene, comforting scene, and he probably could have fallen asleep to the sound of Khadgar mumbling spells if he wasn’t distracted by the same mage in question.

Lothar was staring, he admitted to himself, but he couldn’t really help it, Khadgar just, he looked so-

And maybe that was when it hit him; maybe that was when he realized what he wanted.

Or maybe he was ignoring it the whole time, but he wasn’t going to now.

He leaned away from the back of his chair, leaned towards the mage, and Khadgar looked over at him as he did so.

He saw Khadgar start to ask if he was hurting, but the mage cut himself off as he saw the look in Lothar’s eyes. His features turned suspicious as he pulled away from the commander, “Did you drink this morning too?”

That caught Lothar off guard, and he grew just as suspicious as his friend. He started to ask what Khadgar meant by that, but then the previous night flooded back to him in a nasty, heated rush.

He remembered pulling Khadgar down on top of him; he remembered how frustrated the mage looked. He remembered Khadgar telling him to ask again, another time, and he remembered wanting to.

Lothar felt a hollow pit carve itself into his stomach for making the mage feel as if he was just there to fill a void. As if he didn’t mean anything more to him.

Lothar reached out a hand and held Khadgar’s face, “I’m not drunk.”

Khadgar just looked at him, a little stunned, “You said that last time.”

Lothar smiled and moved in closer, “You can check my breath, if you want.”

He started to move closer, slowly, and Khadgar wasn’t about to stop him again, “I believe you.”

When their lips finally met, it was hesitant. Neither of them wanted to push the other too far, keeping in mind his wounds. But then Lothar got over that pretty quickly.

He moved his hand from Khadgar’s face to the back of his neck, raking his fingers through the mage’s dark hair as he went. Lothar scooted closer to the edge of the chair and deepened the kiss all in one motion; Khadgar opened against him, pushing back just as hard.

Lothar wanted more, but he didn’t have any way to get closer, so instead he tried to bring Khadgar to him. As soon as the mage put his hand on Lothar’s chest to push him against his chair and climb into his lap, Lothar ripped his mouth away and doubled over in pain.

Khadgar immediately jumped away from him as Lothar groaned, rubbing at his chest once more.

“Damn, sorry, sorry, I-“

Lothar sat back up in his chair and grabbed Khadgar’s hand to stop him, “It’s quite alright. Just a bit sore.”

Khadgar moved in close again and put his free hand on the back of Lothar’s neck, “Maybe I should have taken you to the infirmary.”

And just because Lothar wanted to show him how badly he didn’t want to leave, he rose to his feet instantly and moved Khadgar towards the bed, “No need, I feel great.”

“Lothar, you’re-“

Lothar kept moving, and finally Khadgar’s legs hit the edge of the bed. The mage stumbled and fell back instantly, allowing Lothar to climb over him.

Khadgar tried to stop his advancements again, “Lothar I’m not doing anyth- mphf!”

Lothar kissed him before he could finish, and Khadgar melted against him for just a second before his senses came back. He pushed hard at Lothar’s shoulder and the commander didn’t want to move until Khadgar bit out a rough “ _Anduin_ ” against his lips.

Lothar pulled back instantly, pupils blown wide, ready to hear whatever else that voice would say while also being worried that he went too far again.

“I am not doing anything with you in this condition.”

And well, that killed the mood a little bit, as it was meant to. Lothar dropped his head next to Khadgar’s and groaned against his neck.

Khadgar laughed loudly and Lothar was a bit confused until he felt the mage pushing him away again and it hit him, “Are you ticklish?”

Khadgar acted as if nothing had happened and blinked, “Of course not.”

Lothar dove back into his collar and Khadgar busted out laughing immediately, pushing against the man on top of him, “Okay, okay! Stop please, stop, Anduin!”

Lothar rose up again, smiling brightly, “I’ll remember that for when I feel better.”

Khadgar grumbled and pushed Lothar off of him, and the commander flopped to the right of the mage with a quiet sigh.

They lay next too each other comfortably for a bit before Lothar noticed Khadgar getting antsy beside him.

He leaned up on one elbow and looked down at the mage thoughtfully, “Do you want to go back to reading your books?”

Khadgar smirked at him, “Would you be upset if I said yes?”

Lothar acted exasperated and sighed. Khadgar recognized the act and wrapped his arms around Lothar’s neck, “I’d entertain you if I could, but like I said-“

“Yes, I know. I think as long as you set at least one thing on fire I’ll manage to not die of tedium.”

Khadgar smiled and kissed him, because he could, “I can do better than that.”

And that was how they ended up at the top of the tower, Khadgar completely forgetting his books, as he created their own personal display of fireworks above their heads.

**Author's Note:**

> I still can't be sure if I want that tickling scene in this story at all, so if you hate it, ignore it like I do lmao. Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
